Hungary’s Malév Grounds All Flights After 66 Years

Malév, Hungary’s national airline, is no more. The airline grounded its fleet permanently after its planes were held at overseas airports for unpaid debts. Malév’s departure from the market left a gap that competitors including Air Berlin, Lufthansa, Ryanair, and Wizz Air were quick to exploit.

At Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport, Malév had accounted for almost 40% of airport revenue.

“Unfortunately what we feared the most has come to pass, even though we did everything in our power to avoid it,” Malev CEO Lóránt Limburger said in a press statement.

Malév’s English-language Web site carried the following advisory: “Concerning your travel, we suggest that you ask other airlines about their offers or, if possible, you choose an alternative method of transport.”

The coronavirus is now affecting 104 countries and territories across the globe and many travelers are postponing or cancelling their travel plans as a result.
In some cases, a traveler is holding off because travel to his destination is simply not possible due to quarantine and containment rules; in others, it’s simply a desire not to go somewhere where one might end up with the coronavirus or trapped in a quarantined …

In early May, Warren Buffett divested all of his investment firm’s holdings in the four major U.S. airlines, warning that the “world has changed” for the aviation industry due to the coronavirus crisis. In mid May, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said he saw a bumpy road ahead for the airline industry and predicted that a major carrier would not survive 2020 as a result.
It appears Buffett and Calhoun were on …